Security of mobile devices and other processing devices is a primary concern given society's expanded reliance on technology and ever-increasing ability to store private or other sensitive data on these devices. Mobile devices, for instance, have transformed from mere ‘cell phones’ to enterprise-capable devices enabling e-business and other important tasks to be performed on-the-go. With expanded features comes expanded risk, for instance the risk of an intruder gaining access to an end-user's mobile device. Aspects described herein facilitate increased security on processing devices, such as mobile devices, without significant overhead burdening the end-user.
Current solutions lack any element of depth in terms of securing log-ons to a mobile device; the log-on procedure is the same every time the user picks up the mobile device. For instance, a user who has set a 4-digit passcode to gain access to the mobile device brought out of standby is to provide, unvaryingly, that same passcode each time the mobile device is brought out of standby. This renders the user vulnerable to an over-the-shoulder attack in which a malicious party visually observes the passcode that the user types-in. That malicious party is later able to ‘authenticate’ with the device using that passcode. Other attacks may be directed at learning the end-user's log-in pattern through software-based or other intelligence tools. Further, some prior art solutions grant only a single access with no distinction in the role or permissions-level of the granted access.